For a long time I’ve been a fan of Camino. It’s light and fast and does everything you’d expect a browser to do but today it let me down. Irregularities in color management meant I wasted hours switching between photoshop and browser and back again, rubbing my eyes in disbelief with each blink. As a result of this, and a little research, I’ve switched to Safari and I’m not going back.
Here’s 3 good reasons why you, whether you’re a Mac or PC user, should switch to Safari.
1. Safari is the only browser that currently understands and correctly interprets color profiles. If you’re not sure what this means create an image in photoshop that uses vivid colors. Upload it to a website and compare how it looks in Safari to any other browser. In Safari the image retains it’s vibrance. In all the others it will appear washed out. This might sound hard to believe at first but once you notice how the other browsers bungle color you’ll find them pretty difficult to live with. The other’s will catch up eventually. Except IE of course, but you’re not using that. Are you?
2. It’s cross platform and allows Windows users to grab a slice of Apple beauty. A lot of minimalist contemporary design websites, such as Upstart Blogger, use Helvetica as both a headline and body font. Of course, this only works if you have Helvetica installed. Mac users are fine since Helvetica is installed with OSX but Windows users, unless they have installed Helvetica themselves, have to make do with Arial. Thats a bit like asking for a prime steak and getting a happy meal. Even on Windows, with Arial substituted for Helvetica, Safari manages to make things look good due to sympathetic anti-aliasing.
3. Full support for Microformats, the format for common data that can be attached to a website in a similar way to an RSS feed. Still underused and misunderstood, Microformats can make extra information, like an address or phone number, a single click away from your address book and calendar, straight from your browser. It’s very clever stuff.
Try it. It’s free. And it is very good indeed.
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So, what is your take on Firefox?
I’ve always thought that Firefox was a little bit bloated. And it has the same color problems that the other browsers have. I think that Firefox 3 is scheduled to have color profile recognition built in but turned off by default.
I had some weird issues with Safari and sites I needed to use for work. Firefox was too slow for my tastes, but Camino was acceptable. There are some maddening problems with text fields, but it will be nice when I can go back to Safari and avoid using multiple browsers.
I already turned a friend onto Safari. He uses Windows, so he was never really satisfied with the default browser. I had introduced him to Opera, but after moving to a Mac I was sold on Safari. Once the Beta for Windows came out, I suggested he give that a try.
I’ll tell you though, at first he was running into some problems. He would change the settings in the preferences window, but it would have no effect. He actually gave up on it once, and only later, when Opera couldn’t render a form properly, did he open up Safari and finally get it working.
When I first got my Mac (aug 06) I automatically used Firefox, as this was a great browser on my former Windows machine. But the next winter I had to switch to Safari because of the color profile support. I ripped almost all of my hair out trying to figure out why the colors of a website I was working on looked so vivid in Safari, but so inspisid in Firefox. I know the majority uses FF and IE, but visual good sites always look better in Safari.
I’ve always used Firefox, and I liked Safari when I got to work on a Mac, but somethings just aren’t compatible. I think that’s mainly because companies still think that IE is the best (what are they on?!?!?) browser to use.
Regardless, I’ve gone ahead and downloaded Safari. Do you know if there are any plugins? I use ColorPicker and MeasureIt on Firefox for web design and those are really handy.
I will certainly think about switching from Firefox, since I am sick of said browser’s frequent crashes. However, as a PC user, I think I’ll wait until the Windows version’s out of the beta stage since I have heard many horror stories of Safari for Windows’s bugs.
When I bought my MacBook last year, I immediately went straight for Firefox. After using Windows for so long, Firefox offered more of what I was used to. It wasn’t until I upgraded to Leopard that I gave Safari a try–and now I’m completely sold on it. Safari just feels faster and snappier than Firefox (especially on my laptop). I just wish it had support for some of Firefox’s extensions (StumbleUpon, Mouse Gestures, and DownThemAll in particular).
I completely agree. I used to use Firefox, because I preferred it over explorer when I had a PC, and so when I switched to mac I just continued to use it. However, after I really started to try out Safari, I realized all the benefits that come with it. It is the only browser I use now.
WordPress’ WYSIWYG text editor doesn’t work properly in Leopard’s Safari. Line breaks don’t show up.
Having used Safari as “my” browser for years it was at first really hard to believe the problems I encountered when faced to mainly code for Windows and IE and Firefox. Only then it came to my full understanding how spoiled I had been all these years.
Knowing this tidbit about color profile is great. Thanks!
After a year at work the powers to be have finally gave in (a ton of system related problems) and took my (design) machine back from Vista to XP (geez, everything looks so square, no wonder CSS was hated at first with it’s mainly square look then). Unfortunatedly Safari won’t run under this fresh XP install, so I have to remain patient for a little longerr
One thing that helps me a lot with color management for onscreen work is making sure that view>proof colors is checked, and then choosing ‘Monitor RGB’ in the proof setup flyout. Don’t forget that if Safari is the only browser that shows your colors as you intend them, then there’s a rather large audience who sees them differently…